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Thread: Why Do We Photograph?

  1. #41
    Tin Can's Avatar
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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Arrived today

    Timely issue 20, Looking Glass Magazine, has an editor's discussion of our topic by Kimberly Anderson.

  2. #42

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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Quote Originally Posted by Corran View Post

    ...there seems to be a bias right now in the "art" world for photographs of people over anything else
    *perk*..wait..... what????

    people? or NAKED people??

    I have a lot of the latter

  3. #43

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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Quote Originally Posted by Merg Ross View Post
    Hi Jim,

    Well said.

    Your reply here recalls a thread you started about a decade ago on this forum. Remember the "parallel universe?" I think some of the comments made back then are appropriate to Will's post, and answer why some of us continue to make photographs.

    http://www.largeformatphotography.in...allel+universe

    By the way, beautiful table; I can sense your satisfaction!

    Hope all goes well.

    Best,
    Merg
    Merg, what a pleasant reminder. I'm honored. I had completely forgotten that thread. My, 10 years goes by fast these days.

  4. #44

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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    So…how can a couple of slot-canyon images continue to be best sellers? I mean, c’mon…Barnbaum has done these to death - right?

    Thing is…I’ve never, ever truly believed that any subject has been, or can ever be, “done to death.”

    But to sell this work…is simply, truly exhausting. It does not sell itself. What works best is if I can be present - but then…man oh man…do I need to be PRESENT! My dirty little secret is that I actually depend on such sales for income - and so my dog and pony show must go on…

    Rant…

    What I find exasperating is how certain images - like that of what appears to be a couple of strips of grass, a flat strip of river, and a strip of sky…which for the life of me looks like any number of casual iphone pix (ultra-high resolution aside)…can sell for millions of dollars.

    Actually I do have some understanding…that there exists a species of human which function as “gatekeepers,” whose sole purpose is to anoint a very fortunate few to bear the torch of what they (gatekeepers) consider (more like what they have somehow decided) to be culturally relevant. But what truly disgusts me is the slight of hand that these very same gatekeepers exercise in getting so many sheep to nod their heads “yes.”

    Case in point…with the difference that the gatekeeper here was also the “artist.” Years ago…at an evening seminar in Rockport, Maine, I found myself surrounded by nodding heads as the presenter/photographer held up image after image - specifically 12 X 20 (ish) contact prints which were…Flat…Uninteresting…Uninspired…Horrible. And yet, here he was, with his booming voice and impressive physical presence…so convinced of his own importance…so thoroughly surrounding the crowd with the net of his own EGO - that the sheep could only nod their heads yes. What…alchemy! Then something truly bizarre (yet perfect) happened: an unknown individual stood up, spontaneously and uninvited, and began to hold up his own prints…which were astoundingly beautiful…well seen, conceived, perfectly executed. But within just few seconds…Mr. EGO sternly shouted the interloper down, and for the rest of the evening the stranger was treated by the sheep as toxic waste…completely shunned and shamed. Yeah…I know - poor form to try to rain on someone else’s parade. Thing is…Mr. EGO so completely deserved this interruption. How sad that it did not amount to a coup.

    …end of rant.

    My feet…are suddenly full of…holes!

  5. #45
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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Politics

  6. #46

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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Both John Layton’s and Corran’s posts raise points I think are worth exploring. I suggest this thread deals with three issues: why we as individuals photograph, second, what makes a photograph sell, and lastly, what does originality mean, and does our choice of the view camera as our favored instrument limit originality.

    John posted two of his best-selling images, slot canyons, and comments that no subject can be overdone, even if Bruce Barnbaum is already widely known for his slot canyons images. My response is that in terms of marketing, there will always be people who want a well-done piece of art for their walls. John’s images meet that need/desire. But what would happen if his prints were in a gallery along with Bruce’s, and some of the other slot canyon images posted on this very site? Would any one stand out, or would it be an almost random choice? This is where the issue of originality arises.

    I have an example in my own family room, where I hang my own, and purchased, photographs. I would never argue that my own photographs are as good as the Linda Connor and John Sexton prints next to them, but visitors always ask me which pictures are mine, and which are not, which merely says that the differences in quality are not huge. The image I have in mind is one I took of White House Ruin in Canyon de Chelly. Is it better, worse, or even particularly different from the similar images by William Clift (one of my all-time favorite photographers) and many others? No. But I like mine because I was there, I made it, and it does convey a “sense of place” to use Corran’s phrase. In a gallery of White House Ruins photographs, would any one image stand out? Again, there is an originality issue.

    Lastly, and this responds to Corran’s observation about people photography versus landscape, what kind of images seem “current?” I mentioned Alex from Holland not because his images are of people, but because they are surreal narratives. The view camera users who IMHO are the most original are minimizing the static nature of view cameras by using them to record narrative, “produced and directed” images from their own imagination: Greg Crewdson, Julie Blackmon, Jeff Wall, Tina Barney. The vast majority of the rest of us, certainly me, tend to repeat well-worked themes, because that is what view cameras do most easily. If creativity, rather than process and craftsmanship, is our goal, would we be better served by digital photography and the virtually unlimited freedom of Photoshop?

  7. #47

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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    I just had a flashback to my freshman year in college, where the professor in Psychology 101 class posed the question for our final exam: What is life? Boggles my mind to this day, 49 years later.

  8. #48
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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Lewin View Post
    The view camera users who IMHO are the most original are minimizing the static nature of view cameras by using them to record narrative, “produced and directed” images from their own imagination: Greg Crewdson, Julie Blackmon, Jeff Wall, Tina Barney. The vast majority of the rest of us, certainly me, tend to repeat well-worked themes, because that is what view cameras do most easily.
    This is a great point, and I am certainly impressed and intrigued by some users of LF cameras doing this type of work. In my own way, I think that the documentary-type work I have done using LF cameras is in a similar vein (I know it's all been done before by Weegee et al in terms of journalism, but not so much currently). Alex's use of wet-plate for intense narrative-driven works certainly is different, and not only is it good just on a photographic level but the usage of a unique medium gives it further weight IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Lewin View Post
    If creativity, rather than process and craftsmanship, is our goal, would we be better served by digital photography and the virtually unlimited freedom of Photoshop?
    I have also thought a lot about this, especially as I happen to own some very nice digital gear. Following up on my last comment re: Alex's work, I think that sometimes a good photograph can be made even better by the usage of different tools. While numerous photographers insist they can get the same "look" as film using digital techniques and filters, I don't believe that at all. If one of us LF guys is standing right next to a person using a DSLR of some stripe at the same time, getting the same composition, light, etc., the images will still be different. Viewers may even prefer the digital image, but I don't think they could ever be identical, because the medium makes a difference in the look. In this way we can impart even more of "ourselves" in the way we take the photo.

    As an example, at the art festival I did last month, every single visitor to my booth commented on how different my images were than anything they had seen that day from the other photographers. Of course this was immediately apparent since my work was 100% b&w, while 95% of the work elsewhere was color, but nevertheless even the images of parks, waterfalls, and other places that locals knew and had seen before they often commented on how different they were from other images they had seen. Some did not recognize places that they knew well.

    Also at the end of the day, even if my intent is to sell prints, I personally think it's imperative that I use the tools and such that I find enjoyable. I think digital photography is drudgery. I don't like sitting and editing images on my computer, I don't like hands-off nature of digital printing, etc. The banal commercial image making can be done with a DSLR and I am fine doing that but in the pursuit of art I would just rather shoot with my preferred tool, same as why painters choose oil, watercolors, or even acrylics depending on their tastes and preferences.
    Bryan | Blog | YouTube | Instagram | Portfolio
    All comments and thoughtful critique welcome

  9. #49
    multiplex
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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    hi will

    some people photograph for themselves
    and if others like the images that is a bonus
    others really don't photograph for themselves
    well, maybe a little bit, but they really gravitate
    towards what others want to see, buy comment on.
    im of the former. sometimes it is a hard pill to swallow
    but most of the time i don't really care much for what is in vogue
    or what other people want to see or buy...
    so to answer your question why i photograph or make photographs
    most of the time its cause im bored and i have nothing better
    to do, other times it is cause i can't draw my way out
    of a paper bag. from time to time i won't photograph for a few weeks
    and i miss it. ill even take a camera out without film or paper in it
    and make them that way ...
    and the cameraless stuff .. i never get tired of seeing what refracted light looks like
    on a sheet of paper when it appears ..
    unlike you and the dumpster im going to give everyone a camera at my funeral
    and they'll throw them in the big hole with me, i figure you might be able to
    get chromes processed in the afterlife.

  10. #50
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    Re: Why Do We Photograph?

    Sometimes it’s just lunch. Which I am having right now at Giant City Lodge.

    Very nice day with great Fall color.

    Perhaps we meet here soon?


    Quote Originally Posted by bloodhoundbob View Post
    I just had a flashback to my freshman year in college, where the professor in Psychology 101 class posed the question for our final exam: What is life? Boggles my mind to this day, 49 years later.

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